...I'm not sure why anyone would complain that someone is getting too praise.  I understand there's no jealousy involved, but sheesh.  If someone's music is good, or great, are we supposed to mute our praise or invent quibbles and complaints?  [Edit]Sound That would make us just like a lot of producers I've run into who feel that if they don't find something wrong or if they don't put in their two cents worth, they've not done their job correctly. :P

And regarding getting a peek at your speedscore, Mike, I hope you didn't just gloss over that part.  I think I can speak for everyone in the music community, whether we notate or just improvise, there's something special about seeing the handwritten scores by the masters that include their scribbles and scratches and notes crossed out and corrected (though in deference to christof, I am NOT comparing Mike to one of those venerable masters :)

@mverta said:

... and listen to it over and over for an hour during cardio at the gym. Then after I get back, I'll attempt to notate it from memory ...

There is some arrogance being displayed on this thread, with all that crap about regimens, etc.  Just put the music up, and then let it speak for itself. You can drink beer all day long as your regimen, and if your music is good who gives a damn what kind of breakfast cereal you eat or how wonderful your "cardios" are in the gym or how many parts you simultaneously transpose or whatever other sings of "genius" you wish to demonstrate...  

BTW - this is not the first sign of "genius" on this website by a long shot... [H]

@Another User said:

You can drink beer all day long as your regimen, and if your music is good who gives a damn what kind of breakfast cereal you eat or how wonderful your "cardios" are in the gym or how many parts you simultaneously transpose or whatever other sings of "genius" you wish to demonstrate... 

Apparently you're not the gold standard for what all people are interested in.

If you were any more transparent, you could officially be classified as a dielectric.

_Mike

@DMac said:

And regarding getting a peek at your speedscore, Mike, I hope you didn't just gloss over that part.

Nope, I didn't... I just don't have a scanner big enough to fit the scorepad, but I'm the market for a new one anyway.  There's a large format one I was sort of interested in, which still wouldn't be quite big enough, but I figured I could Photoshop two together.  In any case, happy to do it as soon as I'm outfitted and have a moment free.

_Mike

@slitdrum_7346 said:

...up there with J.N. Howard´s last cue in "Grand Canyon"

Funny you mention that... I remember always digging that cue, and it kind of comes out of nowhere during that canyon fly-through montage.  It was a nice contrast to the rest of the score and had a lot of promise and optimism in it...  love that stuff.

_Mike

@William said:

BTW - this is not the first sign of "genius" on this website by a long shot...

...I actually have to applaud William.  I can't tell you the number of times I've read boards where someone has used the word genius as a pejorative but misspelled it 'genious'.  [:P]

And he's actually is right.  'Cause I just gave a listen to Andreas' music (aka slitdrum) and this guy is pretty damn good too! [:)]

And thanks for the possibility of looking at a sketch.  Of course, given your level of Photoshop skill, I'm going to be extremely skeptical if everything appears just 'too' perfect [:)]

@mverta said:

If you were any more transparent, you could officially be classified as a dielectric.

Well, without getting to scientific, two things are certain, at least to me. The day science will discover and undoubtful prove that the brain is a muscle, that day governess Schwurrtzensteckker and I will get a serie of Olympic medals posthumous in the new to be introduced discipline thinking. The second thing is that the universe looks like a cube seen from outside.

@DMac said:

And regarding getting a peek at your speedscore, Mike, I hope you didn't just gloss over that part.

Nope, I didn't... I just don't have a scanner big enough to fit the scorepad, but I'm the market for a new one anyway.  There's a large format one I was sort of interested in, which still wouldn't be quite big enough, but I figured I could Photoshop two together.  In any case, happy to do it as soon as I'm outfitted and have a moment free.

_Mike

Mike:

As of a couple of years ago this was the largest consumer use scanner I was able to find.

http://www.mustek.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=207&category_id=&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=<br>

It costs around $180.00 USD. It is solid and works fine though still not large enough for some of the biggest scores. I bought it to scan pre-existing published scores more than for scanning my own since I went from hand written scores to Sibelius. There may be larger ones available now but I haven't looked lately. Would love to hear if anyone knows about a lager one for a reasonable price.

Be Well,

Jimmy

Hi Mike,

Absolutely staggering. I was nothing short of awestruck by this amazingly beautiful, complex, yet familiar orchestration.

I am just getting started with VSL and audio in general as a logical compliment to my film and digital animation work. In listening to works like this I am both intimidated and inspired that one day these kinds of compositions could accompany one of my documentaries. Thank you on behalf of everyone who appreciates your example here as much as I do.

If you care to share any information on the detailed process, tool sets, recommended readings/tutorials, etc. please do!

Warm Regards,

Spencer Yonker

Yellow Jacket Productions (http://www.yjprod.com)

spencer.yonker@comcast.net

@jammusique_7634 said:

Hi Mike, Compliments for your orchestration and execution abilities. Can you say anything about your programming "methodes"? Do you play all the parts? Do you play your reduction and then do beat mapping from that and then maybe copy stuff down to the the individual parts? And how do you handle your crossfades for say "sus wo/vibr" to "sus w/vibr. for example? Any tricks you're willing to share with the plebs? All best.........

I play all the parts, yes - I do not play from a reduction, as I rarely do reductions.  I have just always composed and orchestrated simultaneously, right into the score. It slows the process a touch at the composing stage, but speeds it up at the mock-up stage, because there's no extra orchestration step needed.

Performance-wise, I have very few tricks.  All my samples are with vibrato, and they're all modwheel-controlled volume, usually across 3 dynamics.  I like to have explicit control over "breath" at all times, and I don't hit a single note without at least SOME "push" or "pull" on the modwheel.  So nearly every brass attack, for example, starts with my modwheel all the way down, and then I slam it forward if it's supposed to be a fast attack, for example. it's tricky to describe, but my left hand is just constantly riding that modwheel in sometimes radical arcs.  But it solves all kinds of problems with the samples, feels more natural, and adds a level of randomness to every line that I really feel it needs.

Thanks for the kind words!

_Mike

@syonker said:

If you care to share any information on the detailed process, tool sets, recommended readings/tutorials, etc. please do!

Honestly, I can't imagine anything better than studying scores of the masters.  None of us - certainly not me - is writing at the level of the truly landmark composers.  When you go back and truly break down, say The Rite of Spring (or Appalachian Spring for that matter), there is just untouchably brilliant stuff to immerse yourself in there.  You can study, and you can analyze, but it's my experience that you also have to just live with it 24/7 to let it truly internalize, in a way that your brain will ultimately understand how to add to your own music and control for your own creative needs.  As much as I appreciate the compliments, I hear my own work and I see a galaxy-sized gulf between my work and the work I truly am inspired by.  John Williams is the reason I became a composer, but I think even most of his work pales in comparison to the greats - people he loved too, like VW and Elgar and Shostakovich, et al.  All this computer crap is just us trying to approximate the great orchestral palette with what we've got - we just don't have orchestras lying around.  (Neither did they, really, but that's a separate discussion.)  So rather than getting hung up in the samples and the articulations, I'm always focused first on what it is we have to say.  

_Mike

Mike: 

It seems to me that the great works you describe and other like examples of true compositional greatness were, in most cases, created over extended periods of time. Many of these works took months and even years to write and orchestrate. Even so, they were often revised extensively by their composers.

Certainly, Bach, Haydn, Mozart and many composers of the 16th and 17th centuries worked under tremendous time pressure and had to produce a lot of work in a short period. However, most of the composers of those eras produced only pedestrian work at best. Only the few true geniuses were able to create great works under those conditions. From the 18th century onward, it seems to me that great compositions were mostly the result of a combination of talent, tremendous education and a lot of time.

Of course, it is possible that I am wrong about this but, I don't know how it is possible to create extended works at the highest possible level with a deadline of the kinds most of us work under. This seems true whether you are in Film, Television, Games or in my world of the Theatre. For myself, I completely empathize with your statement, "I hear my own work and I see a galaxy-sized gulf between my work and the work I truly am inspired by." I know for sure that I am not good enough to do great work quickly. Of course, I don't know whether I can produce great work at all. I do know that the only chance for that to ever happen is if I find a way to take more time than I do now.

Be Well,

Poppa 

But of course, the film-going audience doesn't care how long you had or didn't have to write the music.  There are no disclaimers in the credits.  This is true for most any conditions we write under: what we deliver is what we deliver.  It may not always be fair, but I don't maintain any illusion that my audience will be in any way forgiving; they'll hold my music right up against the best stuff, so I have to maintain that as a goal.

_Mike

Mike:

What you say makes sense to a certain extent. Certainly, it is worthwhile to set high standards. Still, I wonder if you are correct that audiences hold film scores up against the very best art music. Frankly, I doubt that. I certainly don't.

That is not to say that such high quality of writing cannot be achieved under those circumstances since it has, on occasion. I'm simply saying that, as far as I can tell, the greatest works, the ones we admire most, seem to me to have taken time to create.

Be Well,

Poppa

Of course they do; they absolutely do and couldn't help it.  If you don't find a particular stand-up comic funny, you can't make yourself find him funny just by telling yourself, "well, this is just a little out-of-the-way comedy club he's performing in and not Madison Square Garden, so I should expect less."  You don't find them funny, period.  Same with music.  It either moves you or it doesn't, and if the stuff that moves you most is truly masterwork stuff, you're going to feel less from inferior pieces. You're not going to be able to convince yourself that just because it's for a film, or was written quickly, it is as satisfying as your favorite pieces.  That's a totally unrealistic expectation to put on -certainly the average- viewer.  Music is wonderfully pure in this sense.  As it is, most of the best and enduring film scores are ones which approach these levels of compositional virtuosity, which only seems to solidify the point: the better they are, the better they are.  

_Mike

Mike:

I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree. I understand the concept of unconscious response, etc. But, in my opinion, the average movie goer has not even heard most of the greatest art music. This has been increasingly true throughout the history of film. We can say that, in the silent film era, some art music was played along with the films and some of that audience may have also listened to art music. However, as the history of film, and film music has progressed, the wider film audience consists of people of less and less art music education.

I do not believe you can use the argument that this music exists all around and people are aware of it. In my opinion, the vast majority of the movie going audience does not listen to art music and has absolutely no ability whatsoever to compare or contrast it with film music. They cannot tell the difference between Bach and Bartok and honestly, most of them don't care. I think this is true all over the world. I think it is true in every media genre (TV, Games, Theatre, etc.).

We may want to tell ourselves that audiences can somehow sense the difference and that the greatest of our creations will stand the test of time due to their intrinsic merits. This may even be true to some extent, I really don't know. But to think that people really have a sense of the comparison between a film score and art music, that they put these genres up against one another consciously or unconsciously is wishful thinking. They just don't.

Be Well,

Poppa

I'm aiming for the harshest, most well-informed critic in the audience, not the lowest common denominator listener - who nonetheless seems proportionally moved by better music, even without the benefit of familiarity. I think counting on the ignorance of an audience to forgive the quality of our work is... well, let's just say we have opposing philosophies on the matter.  I sure as hell am not taking that chance.

_Mike